Suburbicon director George Clooney says he enjoyed torturing his leading man - and good friend - Matt Damon in the '50s-set dark satire on race relations that he co-wrote with longtime partner Grant Heslov and the Coen Brothers.

“It was fun to put Matt Damon on a little tiny tricycle,” Clooney told The Toronto Sun on the TIFF red carpet Saturday night where he was joined by lead actress Julianne Moore but not Damon.

As for making Suburbicon, he and Heslov both said they were angry when they working on the Coen script.

“I thought it was important to have these discussions about scapegoating minorities,” said Clooney.

“Particularly when we were writing, it was about scapegoating Muslims and scapegoating Mexicans, and saying that these are people who are somehow taking away part of our rightful society, when, of course, immigrants have been the greatest addition to American society.”

Clooney said the recent racial tension in the Charlottesville was disheartening but ‘it’s always simmering. It’s always down there. There’s a tension that’s still present. It’s frustrating when you see the leader of our country comparing two groups of people [Black Lives Matter, and the KKK) that have no business being compared. That’s a missing voice right now. We’ll get it back. That’s what we do.”

On a personal note, Clooney said he didn’t bring his twins, with wife Amal, who are three months old to Toronto this time.

“They wouldn’t remember it,” he told reporters.

But Heslov called Clooney a natural at fatherhood.

“It’s kind of instinctive,” said Heslov, who once lent Clooney one hundred dollars to take his actor head shots in 1982.